I plan on getting my parents a subscription to NetFlix for Christmas. It's like $50 for 6 months.

What's intersting is that 2-3 years ago people said, "NetFlix will die due to streaming and the web!" Well, that day has not come. NetFlix has innovated. Good for them. That's how it should work... Innovate or die!

If code's too transparent you see right through it to the bloody programmers and their coffee and Monster drinks. In fact, you might see into their dark hearts. You'll see little Guitar Heroes and Battlestar Gallacta action figures. Maybe even, gasp!, some Natalie!

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkeyon Monday December 08, 2008 @04:38PM
from the long-time-coming dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Netflix on Tivo is officially out and leaving satellite users out in the cold. Tivo announced today that if you are a subscriber to both services then you can start receiving many Netflix titles on your Tivo for no extra charge. This is only available to subscribers with TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL and TiVo Series3 DVRs. The majority of Tivo's subscribers are probably Series 2 owners and will be forced to 'upgrade' if they want this new service but it won't be that easy for those on satellite. Tivo's current model lineup does not really offer a solution for satellite subscribers. The HD and HD XL are cable only and there is no sign of the Series 3 on their site." Another reader also writes to tell us that "Linux PC and AppleTV users are about to gain the ability to stream Netflix's movies and TV shows directly to their systems. Although Netflix's instant watch service only officially supports Windows and Mac, Boxee expects to release Netflix streaming support to the Ubuntu version of its free A/V media center software within a couple of days, and says that adding Netflix streaming support to AppleTV asap is its top priority."

Posted
by
Zonkon Friday March 17, 2006 @04:27PM
from the there's-a-lot-of-fog-out-here dept.

prostoalex writes "Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat down with PC Magazine to discuss some of the current issues swirling around Google, such as China and censorship, growth of the video content on the Internet, Microsoft's planned move into online ads, working with AOL and Internet neutrality." From the article: "Schmidt was quick to say that the acquisition of Writely was not meant to create a competitor to Microsoft Office, which he said solves a complicated and important problem of work productivity. Writely is a server-based editing system where you can move your files around, he said, and there are places where a rich text editor is useful in Google."

Posted
by
Zonkon Thursday March 16, 2006 @12:56PM
from the unique-is-an-understatement dept.

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has reviewed the AlphaGrip AG-5 handheld keyboard and mouse. From the article: 'After lots of research and five revisions, the perfectionists at AlphaGrip finally decided that they had a product worthy of marketing, and they released the long awaited AG-5. Although the AG-5 looks strange and intimidating, it is a unique and highly innovative product that deserves consideration, particularly by mobile computing enthusiasts. The AG-5 interfaces with computers via a single removable USB cable. It uses a simple chord-like keyboarding model and an integrated trackball to provide complete keyboard and mouse functionality in a unique form factor that looks a bit like a console gaming controller.'"

Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Wednesday March 15, 2006 @11:22AM
from the now-only-one-marketing-dept-will-ignore-my-emails dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Well, looks like rumors are flying, and Dell may have bought Alienware according to an article on cnet.
It really would fit Dell well. They are the last big manufacturer not to use AMD, and this would fill that void. Acquiring this company would also help them grow their business to where they want it to be ($80 billion anually). One can only hope that Alienware support and hardware won't be ill effected by this acquisition."

Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Wednesday March 15, 2006 @10:49AM
from the fourth-law-is-don't-look-at-me-i'm-hideous dept.

buanzo writes "The US Army is deploying armed robots in Iraq that are capable of breaking Asmov's first law that they should not harm a human.
SWORDS (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems) robots are equipped with either the M249, machine gun which fires 5.56-millimeter rounds at 750 rounds per minute or the M240, which fires 7.62-millimeter rounds at up to 1,000 per minute.
"update this story refers to this article from 2005. But com'on, robots with machine guns! I don't get to think about that most days!

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkeyon Wednesday March 15, 2006 @03:26AM
from the best-things-are-those-we-do-for-ourselves dept.

dlaur writes to tell us that today Amazon announced their Simple Storage Service (S3) allowing users to store unlimited amounts of data at $0.15 per GB paid monthly. From the article: "S3 was purportedly built to support both Amazon's own internal applications and the external users of the Amazon Web Services platform. That should be proper motivation to build a service that's fast and robust enough for mission critical use, yet flexible enough to support any storage task thrown at it."

Posted
by
ScuttleMonkeyon Tuesday March 14, 2006 @07:01PM
from the lubricious-embankment dept.

illeism writes "News.com is reporting that a California judge may force Google to give the feds at least some of the information it wanted. The feds may get some of Google's index of sites but none of the user search terms. From the article, the judge said he was 'reluctant to give the Justice Department everything it wanted because of the "perception by the public that this is subject to government scrutiny" when they type search terms into Google.com.'"

Posted
by
Zonkon Tuesday March 14, 2006 @05:26PM
from the you-owe-me-five-bucks dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It's official! PS3 has been delayed until November in Japan. Apparently, it's because of copy protection technology issues associated with Blu-ray." From the article: "Today, Sony officially conceded defeat to the recent flurry of rumors and speculation, with Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporting the machine has been pushed back until November. There aren't many details out right now, but Sony says issues over the finalization of copy protection technology related to their Blu-ray disc drive is the cause of the delay. As the news is coming out of Japan, that creates a worrisome scenario for America and Europe."

Posted
by
Zonkon Tuesday March 07, 2006 @12:15PM
from the protons-and-anti-protons dept.

fermion writes "The New York Times is running a story on the evolving relationship between PR departments and bloggers, specifically between the Wal*Mart PR people and sympathetic bloggers. The interesting thing in this story is not so much the astroturfing, which is old news, but the transformation of blogging from a personal statement to a corporate bullhorn. The bloggers mentioned in the story, who presumably are able to articulate their own opinions, received Wal*Mart email and began to simply copy the PR text into the blogs. What is the use of a blog if bloggers are just going to copy sentences and sentiments from the puppetmaster's email?"

Posted
by
Hemoson Monday March 06, 2006 @11:10AM
from the the-death-kneel-is-coming dept.

H_Fisher writes "Before the red carpet had cooled at last night's Academy Awards, George Lucas told the New York Daily News that big-budget movies will soon be history. From the article: "'The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie,' said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. 'Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with King Kong.'" Lucas' prediction: "In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies ... I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million.""